Riser
by Smileyfax
Summary: At the lowest point in Jane Lane's life, an unexpected visitor comes to her house in the middle of the night.
1. Chapter 1

Jane lay curled in her bed, gazing intently at the wall. She didn't want to turn around, because that would mean looking at the blank canvas set up in the middle of her room again, and that would mean she would start crying again.

She hadn't been able to paint since Daria had died.

Her death had been swift and relatively painless; she had walked to school with Jane, looking miserable and complaining of a headache and nausea. (Helen had barred her from taking a sick day, as Quinn had recently taken three - her usual 'Give Daria an inch and give Quinn a mile' strategy). They were about to start their shared art class when Daria just collapsed, convulsing in a rather horrific way. The ambulance was called and she was rushed to Cedars of Lawndale, but she had already slipped into a coma, and died just short of 2 PM, before school had even let out.

Helen and Jake were devastated, of course. Helen tortured herself with guilt daily, despite the doctors telling her that Daria would have died even if she had stayed at home that day. Jake threw himself into his remaining daughter's life, seeking to bond with her as much as humanly possible (to Quinn's sometime annoyance). Quinn put on a strong public face, acting as if nothing bothered her, but Jane knew that Trent had driven her to her home from the Zon more than once, after she had had way too much to drink.

She was shaken from her reminiscence of the past few weeks by a knocking at the front door. Wiping the tears from her face (for she had in fact begun to cry again), she called out, "Trent! Door!" A few minutes passed, and the knocking began again. "TRENT! ANSWER THE GODDAMNED DOOR!" Jane snapped. Only then did she remember that Trent was spending the night at Monique's (and Jane wondered if he was doing so because she had become increasingly bitchy and irritable in the wake of Daria's death). She sighed, got up from bed (avoiding eye contact with the canvas), marched downstairs, and threw open the door as the knocking commenced a third time. "WHAT?" she practically screamed at the solicitor.

The shape on her front doorstep stank. Like, it fucking reeked. Jane almost recoiled. And whoever it was was absolutely filthy. It looked like they were covered head-to-toe in dirt.

"Jane?"

The voice squeezed Jane's heart. "What? How do you know my name? Who are you?" she asked suspiciously.

"Jane, I'm so cold..." The shape limped through the doorway, and in the light, Jane recognized the shape, impossible as it was.

"...Daria?" Jane threw her arms around her best friend, freshly risen from the grave, tears of happiness now flowing freely from her eyes. 


	2. Chapter 2

Jane's first course of action was to run a hot bath for Daria. Her skin was cold and clammy, most likely from having been buried alive (Jane refused to let the horror of that statement sink in), not to mention the bath would remove the dirt and stink that encased her.

After ushering Daria into the bathroom and helping her into the tub, Jane left the bathroom and almost collapsed as she sat down, door to her back. She tried to comprehend how Daria could possibly be alive; she had 'died' several weeks ago, with what she assumed had been an autopsy and an embalming and a worm buffet and all the other trappings that came with death. She did consider the possibility that Daria was a zombie, but she hadn't taken a single bite out of Jane, despite numerous opportunities.

She stood up and went to her room, realizing that Daria had nothing to wear but the dress she had been buried in. It was one of the most jarring parts of Daria's funeral, her wearing an actual dress. It was black, so at least she would have found the color agreeable...Jane wondered if Quinn had lobbied for a pink dress, and the thought made her smirk.

Jane returned to the hall just in time to hear the shower start - she guessed Daria was rinsing now. She popped into the bathroom, set the clothes on the tank of the toilet, and asked Daria if she needed anything.

"How is my family?" she replied.

Jane opened her mouth to answer, then paused. "Shit! Your family! They'll want to know you were buried alive!" She rushed out of the bathroom, back into her room, and seized the phone from the floor. After punching in the Morgendorffer's home phone, she realized she would come off as slightly crazy if she told Helen or Jake that their daughter had come back from the dead, even if she had Daria speak on the phone.

"Hello?" It was Jake.

"Um, hi, Mr. Morgendorffer. This is Jane," Jane said, as she mentally scrambled for what to tell him.

"Jane-o!" Jake's voice became a little more enthusiastic; he and Helen had let Jane know that, because of her friendship with Daria, she would always be welcome at their home. "How are you?"

"I'm, uh, fine. Listen...can you come over to my place? There's something I have to show you."

"Sure thing, Jane-o! I'll be right over!" The line clicked, and Jane set down the phone.

A horrible thought suddenly struck her: What if she was hallucinating Daria's presence? What if Jake came over, she said, "Here's Daria!" and Jake just saw an empty space? She shook the thought away. It was too late now, anyway, what with Jake being on his way over.

Daria came in to the room, already dressed. She sat down next to Jane on the bed.

"I called your dad, and he's coming over," Jane told her.

Daria nodded. "Did you tell him about me?"

Jane shook her head. "I didn't want to risk being called crazy."

"That's sensible."

They sat in silence for a minute. Then:

"You want to know what it was like," Daria finally said.

Jane looked a little shocked, then nodded, a little embarrassed.

"I woke up to the sensation of several insects crawling on my face. I went to brush them off, but my arms hit the lid of the coffin, and I realized something was horribly wrong. I took the small flashlight from my pocket -"

Jane interrupted her. "You were buried with a flashlight?"

Daria nodded. "I instructed mom to bury me with a flashlight, a knife, and a book. The flashlight and the book would be so that I'd have something to read in case I was ever buried alive. The knife would be so that I could slit my throat, so that I wouldn't have to die of oxygen deprivation."

Jane gaped. "That's...and she buried you with those things?"

Daria was silent for a moment. "She didn't bury me with the knife," she finally said. "Once what had happened sank in, it was the first thing I looked for, but...after that, I tore off some of the fabric lining the coffin, to look at the wood. I was buried in a cheap pine box, just like I'd asked mom -"

"How is it you asked your mom to do all these funeral things for you? I mean, I know you're morbid and all, Daria, but even that seems a little extreme."

"Well, mom's a lawyer, so she made it a point for me to set up a living will. That reminds me, I want my computer back. I saw that the wood was already beginning to warp and buckle from the weight of the dirt, so I just had to claw at some of the boards -" She held her fingers out to Jane, exhibiting her torn nails. "-and the head part of it caved in. I almost choked then, but I kept pawing the dirt down towards the deep end of the coffin, until I managed to claw my way up out of it, through the ground, and walk here."

They were silent for another minute.

"How long has it been?" Daria asked.

"A few weeks. It'll be...well, it would have been a month a week after Friday."

Daria nodded. "Interesting."

"Do you think you were in one of those comas, where everybody thinks you're dead but you're actually not?"

Daria opened her mouth to answer, but there was another knock at the door downstairs. "That'd be Jake," Jane said.

"Well, let's not keep him waiting," Daria said. Jane walked out the door first, followed by Daria. As she walked down the stairs, she idly fingered the knife in her pocket. She had taken it from her burial dress (which she had put into the garbage in Jane's bedroom), not wanting Jane to find it. 


End file.
